Who doesn’t love soap? Well, the obvious answer is the #OccupyWallStreet crowd, but put them aside for the moment. Everyone else loves soap. Or should. But not everyone does. It turns out that environmentalists don’t care much for soap either. Certain kinds of soap, anyway.
Learning that the “occupiers” and environmentalists have a mutual dislike of certain kinds of soap comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever sat next to them on a subway, but the why is different for each group. Where the protesters, presumably, haven’t used soap in a month out of the necessity of circumstance, the environmentalists shower but want to take your choice of soap away from you.
I’ve written about this before, twice in fact, and while it’s not the most exciting topic on the planet (that honor goes to a tie between the start of NHL season and release of the new iPhone), it’s every bit an affront to liberty as banning incandescent light bulb was. Only with soap, there’s still time to act to stop it.
The offending ingredient in soap is called Triclosan, it’s what makes anti-bacterial soap anti-bacterial and stops you from getting sick an untold number of times every year. But to environmentalists, benefits to humans is of little concern, nor are facts, it’s the agenda of control über alles.
Zealots like Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) are pushing Congress to ban antibacterial soap under the time-tested Washington favorite motivation “just in case.” Just in case it’s dangerous, just in case it causes problems, just in case…
Under the “just in case” model there is much that wouldn’t be banned, or never have come into being in the first place. That’s why we have science and why science studies things such as this. And science has weighed in.
A new study published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Microbiology Research found no harm nor risk of creating “super bugs” in connection to the use of antibacterial soaps in the home. Have you heard about it? Of course not, it doesn’t fit the agenda of the media today.
As the Occupy Wall Street crowd continues their unbroken string of glowing media coverage, it has been uncovered that there is coordination between these anti-corporate radicals and so-called journalists. That there is a liberal bias in the media was always known, that there is actual coordination is new. But it doesn’t begin and end with extremists in the streets, it is total and complete and extends all the way down to soap.
Not surprisingly the New York Times has written extensively asking if antibacterial products are “safe” without proof, even as recently as this past August. Yet search for a story in the Times about the latest scientific study to the contrary of what they like to imply and you’ll come up empty. It doesn’t fit the narrative.
The reason most “newspapers” will give you for not running something like the latest study results is that it was funded by an interested parties – in this case the American Cleaning Institute and Personal Care Products Council. The media tend to only report on studies that are funded by environmental groups that draw nebulous conclusions and use qualifying terms like “might” and “could” while pretending they have no vested interest or agenda in their outcome. The same bias in on display in the global warming debate – studies funded by environmental groups with an admitted agenda are highlighted while studies conducted by any group that can be tied to an oil company, no matter how old of tenuous the tie, is run with qualifiers or ignored altogether.
It’s odd that an activist group with a financial interest tied to a political agenda would have their nebulous word taken as gospel while an industry that faces financial liabilities for their product has no say in the public square. Until you realize that the media has chosen sides, facts be damned.
These issues should be studies, regularly and the results monitored closely and publicly. Nothing is more important than public health. But public health and the public interest can not be served when it is forced into the backseat of an agenda driven media working hand in hand with agenda driven activist groups. In the ongoing battle over soap, and on so many other issues, the media has some dirt on their hands.
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